"And thus, through a pettifogging colonial policy, commerce was turned into the merest peculation by a class of persons who made it their object to restrict the agriculturist, and hold his interests at their mercy. The more the farmer raised, the more he found himself subject to the shopkeeper's narrow restrictions; and thus the interests of a naturally energetic people were held in check. The Home Government (God bless it! as the very loyal Provincials used to say when the Imperial Parliament took their cause under consideration) thought little about the outside Nova Scotians, except to say, once in a while, that the territory they inhabited belonged to her Majesty, which fact the people of the province were forcibly reminded of by the presence of imported gentlemen, whom it had pleased her Majesty to place in all responsible offices. In fact, the Home Government, through its pewter-headed policy, was for ever making laws to suit the immediate demands of a favored few, who said good things of loyalty and toryism, and left the rest to chance.
"During this state of affairs, Skipper Hornblower's fame sounded far and wide, and many were the stories told of his smuggling exploits, and how Squire Burgle always kept a large stock of British goods on hand, which he never sold cheaper than any body else, though he got richer. Hornblower's account of how he and the Squire carried on business together in the good old times may not be uninteresting, 'Squire Burgle,' said Hornblower, 'was a great man in them days, said a sight of good things in his prayers every night and morning, denounced smuggling, and hoped all those fearless men that followed it would see the error of their way, turn to her Majesty, and make their loyalty honor the State. Squire used to send me to Boston—(the Dash was the only craft in the trade then)—with little things to sell, and a return cargo of flour, gin, tobacco, and such like Yankee notions, which the Nova Scotians must have, and upon which her Majesty lavished most ungracious duties, to fetch home. Well, the Squire lived at the town of Annapolis, twenty miles up a river, where Digby, at its entrance, was the only port of entry within a hundred miles. Seeing that I liked to make quick trips, it was not always convenient to stop at this obdurate port of entry, and so I used to lay the Dash's head for a piece of dark wood on a point of land outside the entrance (always being careful to have a clearance in merchandise) and run her close aboard of it. Squire had a cousin living near that bit of wood, who used to understand the thing, and could sight the Dash's signal ten miles at sea. Lying off and on until sundown, the Squire's cousin would hang out a light on a tree; if at the top it was the signal—'All right;' if half-mast, 'Keep out!' 'There's the light—all right to-night! the boys used to say, when it gleamed at the tree top.' Then into the basin and up the river we used to dodge, passing on the opposite side of the river, and as far from the port of entry as it was possible to get, and reaching a point on the banks where the cargo was to be discharged, while the folks on shore were all nicely sleeping. The Squire, of course, had said his prayers, or, as it sometimes would happen—though it was always accidental—had gone to Digby, for the purpose of giving her Majesty's Collector a ride into the country. The Collector was always an imported gentleman, who maintained a good deal of imported dignity, which the Nova Scotians had to 'tip' out of him, ere he became a clever fellow, according to their notion of such a being. In addition to taking the Collector a short pleasure trip into the country, the Squire had a nigger fellow, of the name of Tom, who, as cunning as a fox, could tell the Dash was coming, by something he always said he saw was in the clouds. Tom lived on Pin Point, where the Squire had his half-way warehouse, always full of foreign goods, on which no one could tell how much duty had been paid. This half-way warehouse, which Tom called his, used to atone for a monstrous quantity of sins. The Squire, however, declared he had established it there, in the fulness of his generosity, merely to accommodate his kind customers, whose means of travelling did not enable them to reach his trading marts at either extreme. But, when customers called at Pin-Point to do a little trading with the Squire, they generally found it closed, and Old Tom offering his very best apology, by saying it was where master only did his wholesale business. This was accepted on the ground that the Squire and Tom were very funny individuals. Well, we would run to the Point at night, and Tom having everything ready to move at the word, would shoot the Yankee goods into the warehouse, where, in six hours, they would be all transferred into real British growth and manufacture. During this time the Squire was nowhere; but Tom did things as if he knew how. Indeed no sooner were the goods out than we made the best of our way down the river again.
"Next morning, the sun about two hours up, you would see the Dash away down the bay, as calm as moonlight, just sighting Digby. Squire—totally ignorant of Hornblower's arrival—would be putting on the longest face in the town of Annapolis, going up and down the street quite disconsolate, and climbing into the church steeple to see if he could sight the Dash below. 'Hornblower's gone this time!' he would say, shaking his head, 'must be lost! must be lost! must be lost!' And the Squire would tell about his horrid dream, seeing Hornblower's ghost smuggling a chest of tea (real congou), and the Collector catching him on the spot. 'Hornblower's tricky—he larnt it of the Yankees—and I'm always afraid he'll get cotched smuggling little things for himself. What a blessing it is to have a clear conscience!' he would say: the last sentence referring to himself.
"But soon the knowing ones got an inkling of the Squire's secrets, and when he mentioned the Dash in his prayers at morning, and walked the wharf after breakfast, muttering his misgivings, she was sure to arrive in the afternoon. There was virtue in the Squire, but the citizens got the hang of it so well, that whenever I arrived at town they would say: 'It's only Hornblower's ghost.'
"While the Squire would be doing what he called the straight-forward up in town, I'd be dropping kedge at Digby, where (the Colonial Parliament having withdrawn the appropriation for a boarding-boat, that smugglers might get through their little operations without trouble) we would send our own boat for the collector. Used to have everything as bright as a new sixpence, and colors flying, and my own face squared up to do the honest, when that imported dignitary came on board, affecting all the importance of a Port-Admiral.
"'Had a good passage, eh, Hornblower?' the prim collector used to ask, as he mounted the rail.
"'Blowed like cannons, outside, last night! Seeing how we had just ballast in her, like to tipped her over,' I'd say, bowing, keeping my hat in my hand, and doing the polite all up.
"'Didn't have a chance to smuggle, according to that, eh?'
"'Yer honor knows Hornblower never does that sort of thing. The Squire, my owner, is pious, you know,' I'd say, keeping the long face hard down.
"'Yes, Hornblower, I know your owner to be conscientious and pious; that is why I always let you off so easy.' And the collector would look so credulously good-natured that I couldn't help drawing out a roll of cigars, telling him they were pure Havanas, when presenting them. It used to do me good to see how it—small as it was—softened things about his heart. I would immediately follow the cigars with the papers, taking good care to have merchandise enough in the hold to correspond with what was set forth on the clearance and manifest. 'Ye see, sir,' I'd remark, 'I never smuggles, except it is a few cigars now and then, for my own smoking! Old Jacob Grimes says, when a government makes laws what people can't live to, you must live round them; but them ain't my principles.'